The Gamecock Media Group Published Mainly Independent Games

In 2007, Mike Wilson, Rick Stults, and Harry Miller formed the Gamecock Media Group. This video game publishing company was based out of Austin Texas and was founded on the idea that a publishing company didn't need to micromanage its developers.

Wilson, Stults, and Miller were no strangers to the video game industry. The three had previously worked together to create Gathering of Developers along with Doug Myres and Jim Bloom. G.O.D., as it was usually called, had the same hands-off approach that the three later brought to Gamecock Media Group. However, in 2000, Take Two purchased G.O.D. The founders were not happy with the new management, and after Myres passed away, the three negotiated a release from Take Two.

Several years later, the three decided to form Gamecock to once again offer developers the chance to work without a lot of management. In addition to this approach, Gamecock offered to let all independent developers retain all rights to their intellectual property. This meant that the company didn't make as large a profit off material associated with each game, nor could they develop the property into a series themselves. However, it made more developers willing to work with them.

During its first year, Gamecock released two games: Fury, a competitive online role playing game that focused on player-verses-player combat developed by Auran, and Dementium: The Ward, a first-person shooter developed by Renegade Kid

On October 14, 2008, Gamecock announced that the company had been purchased by SouthPeak Interactive. Gamecock continued working with SouthPeak through the end of 2008, releasing games such as Legendary, Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, and Pirates vs Ninjas Dodgeball.

Unfortunately, SouthPeak was sued due to a breach of contract by developer CDV, and later, several development studios filed their own suits. SouthPeak's last published video game was Stronghold 3 in October of 2011. Gamecock itself last published a game in 2009 (Velvet Assassin for the PC and Xbox 360). Another game, Dungeon Hero by Firefly Studios, was in development but was later dropped after SouthPeak purchased Gamecock.

Even though Gamecock Media Group no longer publishes games, a number of titles published by the company are available on the Steam online gaming service. The company also has a deal with GameTap to distribute some of its titles through their distribution service, including Legendary and Velvet Assassin.